So Bill Clinton's spokesperson effectively calls TPM liars and Josh doesn't respond?

I'm a very critical person of both myself and everyone around me. Simply put, I like to complain but I defy the old saying: I don't waste time complaining! Why? Because if I am doing something I don't want to do and I am complaining about it, I get upset enough to work harder and better at finishing things up and I do it faster than I would otherwise to get it over-with. In this way, complaining actually helps me get more done.

SO! Let's complain about TPM--I used to love the site and now I hate it. It's a chore going to anything but the front page so let me break it down for you. I'm not going to complain about content, but the site itself.

First, load times.
I have highspeed broad band, according to the Speak Easy Speed Test, I have a download speed of 6102kpbs and an upload of 494kpbs. That is pretty fast, and I was testing it as it measured to New York City since TPM has a base there. Yet no matter when I access the site or what part it always take for fuck ever to load. Sometimes it refuses to load at all when I know there's nothing wrong with the connection because I can access anything else just fine. Currenlty I have the latest build of FireFox and its often linked to the tribalfusion ads, but not always.

Second, Logins
No matter what, though I have browser set to accept cookies from TPM and it works with every other site it is without fail that I have to log in every hour.  And sometimes even though I copy and paste my password from notepad so that I know it's right, I still get errors when I log in. Granted it's not as bad as the first 6 months after the Primary Change over but it still happens regularly. I usually have to do it 3 times.

Third Layout
When I open any of the TPM sites, the middle of the screen is a line seperating columns. In most blogs the middle is where the blog posts are at. Even where there exceptions, if I look at the middle of say, DKos or Open Left, my eyes tag the blog headline but that never happens at TPM. I always have to turn my head to the left so I never start off on the right foot. The mothership site gets around this usually by placing a big honkin' picture in the middle. Currently it's one of Palin for a video about a supporter shouting death to Obama.

Continuing on the layout on most sites you have either your user options or you have the top diaries. Instead at Muckraker we have a word cloud. It's one of those that increases the size of the words by number of times they are used in stories/diaries and I find this past useless and very very distracting. Election Central and the Cafe at least have useful stories and their blog posts are a bit wider so instead of looking the line, you are looking at the post itself.

Unfortunately the links to various stories or reader diaries just dont' work for me. I mean I can get to them (subject to the brutal loading times) but they don't stand out, they are so damn bland that they kind of run together into a mushy block of text in my eyes. I really really liked the folder-like tabs that you used to be able to use for these things.

Four, Comments
Assuming I can log in, when I hite reply I am catapulted to the bottom of the page where I enter my comment. If I want to review the original thing that prompted me to respond, I have to click and the screen pops up. Why wouldn't you just extend the little comment box right under the post so you can see where it is in relation to parent comment? Why not provide the comment itself in a quote box like many many other forums do? More over you can't rate comments. If I see a good comment I want to tell them so, if I make a good comment it feels nice to see the numbers going up and you can check the comment to try and see where you went right so you can repeat it. Moreover, the 'nesting' effect is so subtle it's often times hard to tell who is replying to what which was something the old site did leaps and bounds better. The only thing that is even remotely good about the comment system here is that it is faster than the the old one.


Five, MyTPM
Whats the deal why the hell did we all lose our pictures? Our bios? This stuff has been around for years and years (I've been a member of TPM Cafe since its inception) and now I come and find out it disappeared and we all have pictures of what? Black and white Thomas Paine? What? And what's with the huge distortion of the profile picture when you try to upload and the shrinkage of it when you actually comment. What is the right size supposed to be? It's horrible they are too small to see one minute and too big to bear the next.

The Dashboard is a nice idea but once again it suffers from slow loading and the white backgrounds always always ALWAYS pops last so I have to wait or be a bit blindsided when it happens. On the Edit Profile, whats the deal with "password recovery" being a required field to change anything? What does THAT mean? I figured out that if I put my password in there it lets me make changes but that's a really un-intiutive and unhelpful way to label things. Here again, my profile pic is perfect size but anywhere else it's either huge and pixelated or two tiny to really appreciate.

Finally the Blogging bit: This is actually good but again the loading is far far too slow. How much bigger is Kos than you? How much faster is his site? The moveable type thing is nice, but I don't have the little blinking cursor while typing the post and its hard to see where it is actually at compared to say a standard word processor.

Well there you go, that's about the size of it. Frankly TPM has mostly gotten worse at least for the last year and maybe longer. The blogging bits are far better than they were though the visual style itself is rather poor.

...can't say I didn't warn you what the title of this post would be! Well keep the good work and stop doing the bad.

I've been a bit busy lately but I thought I'd comment on this post Josh made about credulous reporters. This is not the first time he's said this kind of thing and I completely agree.... but it wouldn't be a post if I didn't criticize him.

When these reporters tell you that Josh Marshall, do you.... TELL THEM the truth? Try to make them see? I know you see yourself as a journalist first (which I've complained about and will continue to complain later) and as a democratic partisan blogger a distant second, but isn't it incumbent on you to set the record straight?

All I ever hear is a complaint: Josh you're in a unique position to be part of the solution.

Once AGAIN responding via diary because we cannot comment on front page posts.

When Josh Marshall says Obama should have campaign in Kentucky the last few days, how does he define the last few days? He had an 8,000 person rally on May 12 after all. So sir, update tomorrow on what you meant?

PS: The most likely source for the right wing talking point on this matter comes from Mark Levin over at National review.

Just a short blog to congratulate Josh Marshall on the birth of his new son Dan.

He seems like a good kid so far!

I don't like Matt Stoller. I've never liked Matt Stoller and I don't think I ever will. However, that doesn't mean he doesn't write or do a lot of worthwhile things and in that vein I'd like to draw attention to this post he made on Open Left. In it he details 5 things the Obama camp is doing:

Voter Registration
Obama Organazing Fellows
Money
Field
Message

He says that there are feelings and rumors that Obama is subtly discouraging people to fund third part progressive organizations and links this to Obama's attempt to control the entire party as a means of building a new political arena to engage in--that is, it's one of his methods of changing the tone. As Stoller says, he doesn't intend this as a criticism against Obama and points out that it is indicative that the Obama team really does "get it." Stoller wonders if it'll work on the Republicans the way it has to win him the Dem nomination, but what does it mean for the blogosphere right now?

Stoller sez: You know all that old-style Washington politics preventing real change?  As hard as it might be to handle, in a lot of ways he means that those of us who believe in partisan hard edged combat are part of an outmoded system.

And again, I'll stress that he doesn't mean this as a criticism. This is the opposite basically, of the image Edwards portrayed. In many ways Edwards positioned himself as a blog favorite and never got enough traction to stick around. Edward's lack of success relative to Clinton and Obama helped me rethink several assumptions and made Clinton's "I am a fighter for YOU!" speeches largely ineffective on me.

There are a couple issues I'd like to bring up that Stoller does not address.

1. The Future
The one concern I have with this, is that while Obama himself I think is a good person to make this change, what happens after at most, 8 years when he is out of power? If the movement is tied into him as opposed to institutions it begins to crumble away. In many ways this is what happens with Clinton in the 1990s and led the disasters of the early 2000s. Now that disaster had to do a lot with the WTC attacks and the fear that most of the country felt could only be alleviated by handing over their rights/critical thinking abilities to Bush who does not know how to do anything. Stoller to his credit recognizes this at the end, when he says we need to figure out how to move the country in a more progressive direction. But it's a sentence at the end for now and he avoids stating the main point, without Obama whether in 2016 when he runs out of terms, of earlier if he runs into a bullet, what happens to this movement?

2. Were/Are the bloggers part of the problem.
Yes and no. Now there are certain bloggers who Obama wouldn't consider part of the problem, and I'm thinking those who focus more on policy (think Ezra Klein or Matt Yglesias) or new media (TPM) or are just too moderate to get riled up about much (Kevin Drum). But agitating blogs and I guess DailyKos is a good example, are a bit different. They are part of the problem, but they also weren't.

Now I realized that Obama considered us part of the problem back in January and late December and it took me a while to come to terms with it but I did. I did because I think Obama's way IS a better way, and with the ultimate challenge of Global Climate Change facing our species we can't afford to do anything less than the best we can. We were necessary in our time, when we were the only ones battling Bush, and had to provide 99% of Democratic backbone, but those days are starting to pass. In many ways we'd become a victim of our own success as we showed Dems that fighting does not equal defeat (think FISA, except for Steny Hoyer who needs to get taken out behind the woodshed by the Prog. Caucus but I digress). In many ways we were necessary to battle the VRWC, but with destruction of the government by the republicans they have lost a huge amount of power. They can continue to scream but it does far less good, and that means we can focus on something else than just fighting. In the end, I see the blogosphere as having bought time, and pushed aside enough space in the discourse for a candidate like Obama to emerge and try and completely change everything.

Frankly, I think it will be a relief when we don't have to spend our energy keeping our foot on the necks of the GOP anymore. I don't want to live like that, 51% keeping the other 49% down, until they switch. I would much rather live in the culture/country that Obama is trying to build. If we have to we can always pick up the fight again, but don't be too busy fighting that you miss an opportunity for real peace.

I point any visitors to this post by Josh Marshall on the mothership. In particular, take a look at this statement: "But in this case, as Editor & Publisher of TPM and TPMmuckraker, I'm considering endorsing Dann's decision to stay in office at least for a few weeks so that we have enough time to dig into this story and wrench as much schadenfreude from it as possible."

Schadenfreude is taking pleasure in someone else's bad luck--and apparently Josh Marshall feels a little of it, or enough to joke about it.

But Dann is a fellow Dem.

I'm not calling for the kind of corrupt blindness that Republicans routinely practice, but I find it offensive for someone ostensibly a Democrat to take pleasure in the very public fall of a fellow Democrat from office. Dann likely should go, But it's nothing but a black eye for Democrats. Why does Josh feel happiness at this train-wreck when he didn't seem to for Spitzer's fall?

As I've said time and time again, Josh Marshall needs to remember that he is a Democrat/Lefty first and foremost. That's why the site did so well. Look it's clear he's not that serious. But it still feels like a betrayal and remains my greatest criticism of TPM.

Am I piling on the over-worked staff of the TPM media empire? Absolutely!

Why? Well I expect better, and I expected that TPM would be able to hold out as it was while the most heated Dem Primary in a generation (1992-2008) raged across the land, with important contests in all 50 states (except those states HRC loses, those don't count and allow me to welcome Vermont to the ranks of oblivion).

Okay, so technically what's wrong?
I constantly have to log in, I'm talking every 5 minutes.
I can't seem to get spaces in my profile, no matter what HTML I use.
I couldn't even access the "Blog Now" link until last week. I just got a blank page.

What's socially wrong?
Lots! Look, I tended to talk "smarter" here than at DKos or other sites. That was a function of the beautifully embedded way comments were structured. You could follow an entire conversation between posters much more easily than now and thus could really get into a tone of conversation.

And that's another thing. Columns. I liked the column format before. I could look and see, hey, who's clustered to the top today and what are they saying? It was an excellent way to keep a good handle on the articles of the day. Now those get crowded out. It's not easy to keep up and you have to dig a long way through, which, with the clunky interface takes sometime. It's difficult for a site to pull this off, Kotaku can do it. DKos can mostly do it, but things just get buried here now.

Finally why can't I rate someone? Just recommend--and not even comments?
I'm a narcissist about intellectual things, I craved positive ratings. I'd love to see that aggregate score and examine who recommended me for what and who thought I was an ass and troll-rated.  My theory is that the ratings were a huge part of why comments became conversations. When you scrolled and saw someone have a high rating on a comment you had the little bell go off in your head "Oh, lots of people think that comment is worthy!" and then you'd go read it and maybe join the conversation.

And you STILL can't have comments over on the mothership! I wrote to Sullivan about this earlier (as he had a poll 60-40 against comments) and it drives me crazy.

Well in conclusion about the only thing I really like so far is the profile pics that are attached the comments.

Look, I really liked TPM. I still do to a point. That's why I'm harsh. I want you to to better because I know you can, and above all, actually address the problems. Even something as simple as "Well I don't see it as a problem" is better than silence.

Kevin Drum quoting Steve Benen muses that it's become complete chaos in Washington with everyone blaming each other and no one managing to blame the Media, Dems or the vicious bloggers.

Over at TNR, Eve Fairbanks worries that the scandals are just one big mess and we'll miss the trees for the forest.

You know what this reminds me of? Foley and the Page Scandal. After that really started blowing up in their faces the GOP started acting rather like this, with everyone blaming everyone and leaders trying to instill order and message discipline but failing miserably.

This has been happening with increasing frequency since the elections. I have to confess though I post-date Watergate (and thus REFUSE to ever stick the "gate" handle on a scandal as if it were a pot) I cannot imagine an organization (the GOP machine) imploding like it has. In the weeks before the election I compiled a post that consisted of JRR Tolkien's description of what happened to the armies of Sauron after the Ring melted. Basically like kicking over an ant hill, the ants panic and die. But it also reminded me of something else.

I'm pretty comfortable saying Bush is trying for a dictatorship and failing at THAT as he has at everything else (I mean I'm probably not going to be hauled away and tortured for saying that). But what's happening to the GOP seems to be like what happens when a third-world dictator goes down, one day everything is fine but the next thing you know rumors are flying and everyone is off to join the rebels in the hills as the mob starts hunting for blood.

The fall of a tin pot dictatorship is what I think the best analogy is to describe what's happening to Bush and his GOP right now.

This is the third part of a 3 part series I began at Daily Kos. I struggled with putting what I wanted into words, and decided to try the final part here then cross post it.

The problem I identify with power, both for the actor and acted upon, is a lack of control. In part I, I talked about the consequences of a powerful actor using its power unilaterally. It breeds a feeling of lack of control for the acted upon that can lead to very bad consequences, and uses up a lot of resources for the actor.

In part II, I talked about the difficulties for the actor in terms of the perceptions of power as opposed to more empirical consequences.

In part III I will talk about a more abstract danger directly to the actor in regards to using power. The lack of control.

When a Hyper Power uses power, they create consequences and so on and they have to react to these consequences. This results in having to use power to deal with those consequences. You can see how this works by looking at Iraq. You use your power to invade, then you have to use your power to try and rebuild the country (or take its resources) and this results in having to expend more power in pacifying it so you can rebuild, in trying to solicit funds or manpower from other countries and so on. You have to spend huge amounts of both political capital and resources to manage the consequences of your invasion--and contrary to what might seem obvious, you are not in control. You have set things in motion that you can no longer ignore and so, you are trapped.

That's what happens when you use power. It traps the user into certain paths, closing off doors of opportunity until further actions are no longer a question of "should" something be done but "can" it be done. CAN we pacify Iraq? CAN we increase troops levels? CAN we create a functioning political process? CAN we prop up Maliki? We can no longer spend time on the "should" because we no longer have the option of very many choices.

The only way to nullify this is to try and nullify the initial act, in this case the invasion of Iraq--by pulling out. The only way to regain any kind of freedom is to STOP USING OUR POWER, but that means that you have to accept diminished power as a consequence of regaining your freedom.

Look at another example, Karl Rove's 50%+1 strategy. He chose to exercise the power he helped wield to create that kind of country, subordinating everything into that goal and it created the batshit insane constituency that still approves of Bush and trapped him into having to keep on demonizing opposition and pursuing things like Schiavo all to deal with the consequences of the strategy. Now look at him, Bush is completely trapped.

That's why power corrupts people, because use of power leads into the power making the decisions for you by transforming conversations into "can" instead of "should." It creates a lack of control that forces the user to lose any kind of ethical/moral calculus in their actions.

In honor of Josh's report on USNews's list of which Dems could flip the senate if they die, here is a list of Republican Senators from states with Democratic Governors. If any 2 of these Senators die, then the Democrats will have 51 Democratic Senators and presumably 53 votes for majority.

Arizona

Jon Kyl - 64
John McCain - 70

Iowa

Chuck Grassley - 73

Kansas

Pat Roberts - 70
Sam Brownback - 50

Louisiana

David Vitter - 45

Maine

Olympia Snowe - 59
Susan Collins - 54

New Hampshire

Judd Gregg - 59
John Sununu - 42 (wtf? legacy!)

New Mexico

Pete Domenici - 74

North Carolina

Elizabeth Dole - 70
Richard Burr (who?) - 51

Oklahoma

James Inhofe - 72
Tom Coburn - 58

Oregon

Gordon Smith - 54

Pennsylvania

Arlen Specter - 76

Tennesee

Lamar Alexander - 65
Bob Corker - 54

Virginia

John Warner - 79

Wyoming

Mike Enzi - 62
Craig Thomas - 73

I'd hate to think that this blog is becoming a place to respond to the frontpagers on the mothership TPM site, but here we go again.

First, congrats on your son Josh! I hope you get a lot of sleep now because you'll need it.

Second this is a very interesting post that I suspect I have a lot easier time excepting than say, someone who is 20 years older than I am. I was born in late 1981. I only vaguely, VERY vaguely remember the "Godless Communist!" type propaganda of the early and middle 80s. My first strong political memories are the event that made me a Democrat forever, but my next are of the fall of the USSR and Yeltsin on that tank. I was 10 years old.

Anyhow, being a history buff I am reminded not so much of Vietnam-- which only scarred me because the GOP has been beating Dems over the head with it for more than 30 years--but, especially thanks to the Murdoch analogy of: Fordlandia! Henry Ford's attempt at vertical integration by creating a rubber plantation in South America. After the disaster of his first plantation he tried again upstream but by then it was too late and the market had passed hm by. He was forced to sell at a massive loss.

I think the key difference between Iraq and Vietnam is that in Vietnam there was an organized force that was going to take charge, and most of the people wanted it for various reasons. That's not going to happen in Iraq. What's going to happen when we pull out is everyone is going to realize that the only thing stand between them and annihilation is themselves. That's why when we pull out it will almost assuredly dissolve into Grand Old Super ClusterFuck from the current Super ClusterFuck. In Vietnam when we left the country eventually reorganized. Thanks to media and oil the entire planet is going to have a front row seat to some of the bloodiest chaos we've seen in 20 years... and everyone will know it's OUR fault.

Do I think we should pull out? Hell yes. If we had 400,000 more troops, if we actually had competent leadership, if we could actually be more concerned with getting people who speak Arabic rather than rooting out teh Gay, maybe we should stay. But that's not going to happen. None of those things are going to happen.

I disagree with Josh: when we pull out a lot of people are going to rightly blame us and the entire world will see the consequences of our fuck up and we will pay big time. Because every time horrific news makes it out of Iraq people are going to look at us and think "they did that." And we will pay for that, oh how we'll pay.

If we stay there will be trouble, if we go there will be double. Unfortunately if we stay the trouble will become double--it'll just take longer. As Kevin Drum said, things can get worse.

 

"A wind of change is in the air..."

You know what? He sounds like a preacher.

You know what else? I see the Speaker of the House next to him.

Pretty damn cool.

Also Tim Walz is ahead in the MN6th by about 6% with 60% counted. That feels pretty good - in the last blog push for money I sent in $100 to Walz. I'm not in the 6th but I do drive through there on my way home from Des Moines.

Have to make sure to honk next time.

Just wondering if anyone knows because I think I might have missed that email.

Or is it just me that can no longer rate people?

So I just now read Josh Marshall's post explaining why DK won't use his real name. Same reason as Armando attempted (poorly) to remain anonymous. He's a lawyer and the law firm gets skittish and the clients get snotty about their peopel blogging. Well too fucking bad I say. If you want the glory, if you want the pulpit you have to take the risk. If you're someplace like TPM you sure as hell better have your real name out there. It's always annoyed me but until Josh's post it never annoyed me enough to speak out.

I'm a law school student. I understand better than most how not pissing off the firm is important. If you do get outed, your work level may drop and if you get fired you get blacklisted. I think it's stupid that firms get their panties in a bunch over this and if I ever start my own law firm it will not fire bloggers because they're bloggers. I swear this on the life of any future children. But if you're worried you should stay out of the front-page politics of it.

Josh should find someone who doesn't feel the need to hide and I think less of DK for not declining the opportunity to post on the frontpage or for not throwing caution to the wind and revealing their real name. Boo-fucking-hoo.

Update: To respond to a few of the comments below...

I completely agree that DK is a good writer and has good content. I think I prefer DK to Josh Marshall if I had to choose. To my understanding nothing I said indicated I thought DK was lacking in quality or ability. Now most blogs I don't expect to hold to the same standard as newspapers but I do for the megasites such as the frontpage of DailyKos and quality sites such as TPM simply because of Josh Marshall's incredibly credibility both online and in the print media. He's in journalism text books for God's sake.

Nothing I said above indicates that I think less of Josh Marshall's credibility either.